Jake Wallis Simons (@JakeWSimons) is a Telegraph features writer, novelist and broadcaster. His website is jakewallissimons.com. Follow him on Facebook here and on Twitter here. His fourth novel, Jam, which is set in a traffic jam on the M25, is out now.

Is the EDL's Tommy Robinson heading for a breakdown?

The English Defence League is having a difficult time. Two weeks ago, a rally outside the town hall in Walthamstow, north-east London, was thrown into disarray. Supporters en route to the event were obstructed by demonstrators from groups such as Unite Against Fascism and We Are Waltham Forest, who staged a sit-down protest at a key junction between Hoe Street and Forest Road. The EDL contingent had to be redirected through the backstreets of Walthamstow, receiving abuse from local people and anti-fascist protesters as they passed.

At the same time, another group of 400 anti-EDL activists broke through police lines and occupied the intended rally point. There they stumbled upon the EDL leader, Tommy Robinson, who had arrived early with a handful of supporters to set up the sound system. Tensions rose as police did their best to contain the situation. Forced to dismantle the equipment after a standoff, a visibly shaken Robinson was witnessed having a blazing row with his closest colleague, Kevin Carroll, who despite possessing a criminal record will be standing as a candidate in the Bedfordshire Police Commissioner elections later this year. Twenty English Defence League supporters were arrested; the rally was cancelled.

On Monday, the EDL made an attempt to recover some dignity by announcing that the Walthamstow demonstration had been rescheduled for October 27. Predictably enough, opposing groups wasted no time in promising a robust counter-protest.

And so it goes on. Yet despite the apparent indefatigability of the EDL, a 27-minute video message released this week by Tommy Robinson offers a fascinating insight into the pressure he is under, as well as the infighting that is threatening to tear his movement apart.

The video opens with Robinson, sporting a sculpted haircut and pristine white T-shirt, in a thunderous mood. His initial concern is to set the record straight concerning the Walthamstow debacle. When he was surrounded by hostile activists, he says, he didn’t back down. Despite “two hours of bricks, bottles, abuse, police asking us to move, we weren’t moving … Bear in mind I’m looking at 2000 people who all want to cave my head in … [but] I’d rather be kicked to death than walk away from those scumbags.”

Despite this “staunchness”, members of his own movement had “questioned [his] integrity” by accusing him of running away. According to his account of events, insult was added to injury when EDL supporters blamed him for the failure of the march. Some even demanded that he reimburse their travel money.

“No one was backing us up,” says Robinson, referring to the supporters who had not managed to reach the rally point. “I didn’t say, ‘why didn’t you try and smash through police lines?’. I didn’t throw accusations. Yet people threw accusations at me, questioning my integrity, saying we bowed down.”

The requests for financial recompense were the final straw. “Someone asked me for £100, saying he’s paid to come down here and wasted his money and he has three kids at home,” Robinson says, clearly upset. “Well, I have three kids at home. The difference is that he can take his kids to the park. When we get back off a demo, for a lot of people its over. But my life’s a demo. That’s my life, a demonstration. I’m not bothered about being arrested. My wife’s been arrested, my house has been raided, I’ve done eight days on remand for [an incident at] Tower Hamlets, three days in a Swiss jail for the FIFA thing … I don’t moan. My face is my [EDL branded] hoodie. I can’t take it off. That’s his demo day over. Mine’s not. Mine carries on. I don’t bleat about it.”

Clearly, this insubordinate supporter has hit a raw nerve. What follows is an impassioned rant in which Robinson reveals the extraordinary pressure that is bearing down on him from all sides. Contrary to rumours spread by Nick Griffin that the EDL is funded by “Zionist” businessmen, Robinson says he is a volunteer like everyone else, funding his activities from his own pocket. He holds up a fistful of mortgage arrears letters, complaining that his phone has been cut off, his financial freedom frozen by the authorities, and that all the movement’s money, accumulated via the sale of merchandise, is used up in defending their website against cyber-attack.

In addition, he says, he lives in constant fear for his life and the safety of his family. It is only a matter of time, he says, until “people travel to demos with guns in the boot and IEDs.” In his mind, it is inevitable that “at some point, some beardie weirdie will try and kill me.” Devonshire police has even offered to put him and his family into a witness protection programme, he claims. His response, however, is “no, we’re not doing it! Do you see me hiding?”

Thirteen minutes elapse in this way, with the timbre of Robinson’s voice rising all the time. He talks about how marital difficulties caused him to move out of his house, but few people would allow him to stay for fear of attracting trouble; he rails against the splitters, referring to them as “vultures jumping in with pathetic little splinter groups.”

At this point, however – just when he seems on the verge of exploding – he tells himself to “calm down” and gathers his thoughts. He then explains in some detail how “backstabbing” is threatening the unity of the EDL, and challenges pretenders to his throne to stake their claim on YouTube. The video ends with two soliloquys delivered in a hushed, almost intimate voice that cracks with emotion. In the first, he appears to be a man stretched to breaking point:

“With all life’s pressures, and all the normal personal life pressures people have, children, families, you know, f—— … one death threat, one Osman warning, bit of pressure, bit of stress, when you start putting the court case after court case after court case, no money, financial restraint, clamped, it’s all in order to break me, yeah? What I don’t need is English Defence League supporters getting on my back.”

At this point, the dominant impression is that the collapse of Tommy Robinson and his group is imminent. In the second section, however, he gathers all the threads together and transforms them into a rousing finale. Referring to the upcoming, rescheduled demonstration in Walthamstow, he says:

“All these little f—— Islamists are going to be out in force thinking they can take the p–, so every lad needs to be there, it’s important. As I said, I welcome everyone back, I take everyone back, there’s no hard feelings with anyone. Let’s crack on, have a united front, and take back our cities street by street.”

He signs off with a wink that must send a thrill of delight down the spines of his supporters – and a chill down the spines of the rest of us.

Tommy Robinson is nobody’s fool. Although his display of stress appears to be genuine, there can be no mistaking that what we are witnessing is the careful cultivation of a martyrdom myth. The movement of the speech – the alternating notes of despair, fury and steely resolve – is a deceptively masterful piece of oration. And it seems to have worked. One follower, 223Stryker, posted in an online comment that “Tommy is a legend and the glue that holds the EDL together, my advice to his detractors is grow up or get out”. Another, Jacob Bewick, simply wrote “no surrender Tommy”.

It is impossible to tell whether Robinson’s public – and somewhat bizarre – convulsions represent the death throes of a movement or the birth pangs of a new and more dangerous phase. Either his zeal will be stoked by the pressure, or it will ultimately destroy him. No prizes for guessing which will be in the public interest.